V. I. Lenin

Speech Delivered At

The All-Russia Congress Of Transport Workers

March 27, 1921[1]

Written:27  March, 1921First Published:PravdaNos. 67 and 58, March 29 and 30, 1921; Published according to thePravdatextSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 1st English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 32, pages 272-284Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\HTML Markup:David Walters&R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

Comrades, may I thank you all for your greetings and ask you to
      accept my greetings to your Congress.(Stormy
      applause.)Allow me to digress before dealing with the
      subject that directly concerns the work and tasks of this
      Congress and what the Soviet state expects of it.

As I was coming in through your hail just now, I saw a placard
      with this inscription: “The reign of the workers and
      peasants will last for ever.” When I read this odd
      placard, which, it is true, was not up in the usual place, but
      stood in a corner-perhaps it had occurred to someone that it was
      not very apt and he had moved it out of the way when I read this
      strange placard, I thought to myself: there you have some of the
      fundamental and elementary things we are still confused
      about. Indeed, if the reign of the workers and peasants would
      last for ever, we should never have socialism, for it implies
      the abolition of classes; and as long as there are workers and
      peasants, there will be different classes and, therefore, no
      full socialism. And as I pondered over the fact that three and a
      half years after the October Revolution we still have such odd
      placards (even if they are shifted out of the way) it occurred
      to me that there may still be great misunderstanding of the most
      common slogans in popular use. Take one of our most popular
      slogans which we all variously repeat: we all sing about our
      present fight being the last and decisive one. But I am afraid
      that if we were to ask a large section of the Communists against
      whom they are now waging this last battle (not the last one, of
      course, that’s putting it on a bit thick, but one of the
      last and crucial ones) 1 am afraid only a few would give the
      right answer showing a clear understanding against what, or
      whom, we are now waging one of our last and decisive battles. It
      also seems to me that, in view of the political events which
      have caught the attention of the broad masses of workers and
      peasants, we ought once again to ascertain, or, at any rate, try
      to ascertain, against whom we are waging one of our last and
      crucial battles this spring, at this very moment. Let me go over
      this point.

To sort it out we should, I think, start by reviewing as
      precisely and as soberly as possible, the opposed forces on
      whose struggle hinges the fate of the Soviet power, and,
      generally speaking, the course and development of the
      proletarian revolution, which is a revolution for the overthrow
      of the capitalists in Russia and elsewhere. What are these
      forces? Bow are they grouped against one another? How are they
      deployed at present? Any marked aggravation of the political
      situation, every new turn in the political events, even if it is
      not considerable, should always cause every thinking worker and
      peasant to ask himself: “What are the forces involved? How
      are they grouped?” And only when we are able to estimate
      these forces correctly and quite soberly, irrespective of our
      sympathies and desires, shall we be able to draw the proper
      conclusions concerning our policy in general, and our immediate
      tasks in particular. Let me, therefore, give you a brief
      description of these forces.

There are basically three such forces. Take first the
      proletariat, the force that is closest to us. It is the first
      force, the first discrete class. You all know this very well,
      living in the very midst of it. What is its condition now? In
      the Soviet Republic it is the class that took power three and a
      half years ago, that has, since then, been exercising its
      domination-dictatorship-and has suffered and endured exhaustion,
      want and privation more than any other class. To the working
      class, to the proletariat, this period, during the greater part
      of which the Soviet state was engaged in a relentless civil war
      against the whole capitalist world, brought calamities,
      privation, sacrifice and intense want on a scale unparalleled in
      world history. A strange thing happened. The class that took
      political power did so in the knowledge that it was doing so
      alone.

      That is intrinsic to the concept of the dictatorship of the
      proletariat. It has meaning only when one class knows that it is
      taking political power alone, and does not deceive others or
      itself with talk about “popular government by popular
      consent through universal suffrage”. You all know that
      there are very many-far too many-people who love to hold forth
      on that subject, but, at any rate, you will not find them among
      proletarians, because they have realised that theirs is a
      dictatorship of the proletariat, and they say as much in their
      Constitution, the fundamental law of the Republic. This class
      was well aware that it was taking power alone, under extremely
      difficult conditions. It has exercised its political power as
      any dictatorship does, that is, with grim determination. In
      these three and a half years, it has suffered distress, want,
      starvation and a worsening of economic positions such as no
      other class in history has suffered. It is not surprising that
      as a result of its superhuman effort it is uncommonly weary,
      exhausted and strained.

How was a single class able to exercise its power in the teeth
      of the resistance and attacks of the world bourgeoisie, in a
      country where the proletariat is numerically so much smaller
      than the rest of the population? How was it able to do that in a
      backward country artificially cut off by armed force from
      countries with a more numerous, class-conscious, disciplined and
      organised proletariat? How could it hold on for three and a half
      years? What was its mainstay? We know that it was the mass of
      the peasants, at home. About this second force more in a moment,
      after we finish our examination of the first. I have said that
      never has its suffering been so great and acute as in this epoch
      of its dictatorship; and you all know it, having observed the
      life of your mates in the factories, railway depots, and
      workshops. Never before has the country been so weary and worn
      out, Where did this class get the moral strength to bear those
      privations? Clearly it had to draw on some source for the moral
      strength to overcome these material privations. As you know, the
      question of moral strength and support is a vague one; you can
      give any reading to moral strength. To avoid the danger of
      reading anything vague or fantastic into “moral
      strength”, 1 ask myself: Is there a precise definition of
      that which gave the proletariat the moral strength to bear the
      unprecedented material privations connected with its political
      rule? I think this will give us a precise answer. Ask yourself:
      Could the Soviet Republic have borne its trials over three and a
      half years, and withstood the onslaught of the whiteguards
      supported by the capitalists of the world, if it had had to face
      backward instead of advanced countries? You have only to put the
      question to see the obvious answer.

You know that for three and a hall years the wealthiest powers
      of the world fought against us. The armed forces that were
      ranged against us and that supported Kolchak, Yudenich, Denikin
      and Wrangel—you all know this very well, for you all
      fought in the war—were immensely and clearly superior to
      our forces. You know perfectly well that these states are still
      very much stronger than we are. How is it, then, that they set
      out to vanquish the Soviet power, and failed? How did this
      happen? We have an exact answer: the proletariat of all the
      capitalist countries was on our side. Even when it was patently
      under the influence of the Mensheviks and
      Socialist-Revolutionaries-in the European countries they go by
      another name-it refused to support the fight against
      us. Eventually, the leaders were compelled to yield to the
      masses, and the workers disrupted the war. It was not we who
      won, for our armed forces were insignificant; the victory was
      won because the powers could not hurl the whole of their armed
      force against us. The course of a war depends on the workers of
      the advanced countries to such an extent that it cannot be waged
      against their will, and their passive and semi-passive
      resistance eventually disrupted the war against us. This
      incontrovertible fact gives the exact answer to the question as
      to the source on which the Russian proletariat drew for moral
      strength to hold out for three and a half years and win. The
      moral strength of the Russian worker lay in his knowledge and
      awareness of the tangible assistance and support which the
      proletariat of all the advanced countries of Europe was giving
      him in this struggle. The direction which the working-class
      movement in these countries is taking is indicated by this most
      important recent event: the split in the Socialist parties of
      Britain, France, Italy,  and other countries (both vanquished
      and victors) which differ in cultural and economic
      development. The main development of the year in all countries
      has been the formation of Communist Parties, with the support of
      all that is most advanced in the working class, on the ruins of
      the Socialist and Social-Democratic parties—which in
      Russia are called Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary. And, of
      course, there can be no doubt that if we had been attacked by
      backward countries, without mighty proletarian masses, and not
      by advanced countries, we would have been unable to hold out for
      three and a half months, let alone three and a half years. Would
      our proletariat have had the moral strength if it had not relied
      on the sympathy of the workers of the advanced countries, who
      supported us in spite of the lies about the Soviet power
      circulated by the imperialists in millions of copies, and in
      spite of the efforts of the “labour
      leaders”—the Mensheviks and
      Socialist-Revolutionarieswho could have been expected to, and
      did, hamper the workers’ struggle for us? With this
      support, our proletariat—numerically weak and tormented by
      poverty and privation—won out because it had the moral
      strength.

That is the first force.

The second is that which stands between developed capital and
      the proletariat. It is the petty bourgeoisie, the small
      proprietors, which in Russia constitute the overwhelming
      majority of the population—the peasantry. They are mainly
      small proprietors and small farmers. Nine-tenths of them are
      that way, and can be nothing else. They do not take part in the
      acute struggle daily waged by capital and labour. They have not
      been schooled; their economic and political conditions do not
      bring them together, but rather tend to separato, alienating
      them from each other, and transforming them into millions of
      lone-wolf small proprietors. Such are the facts and you are all
      perfectly well aware of them. It will take collectives,
      collective farms and communes years to change this. Thanks to
      the revolutionary energy and devotion of the proletarian
      dictatorship, this force was able to dispose of its enemies on
      the right-the landowner class—to sweep them right out and
      abolish their rule more swiftly than has ever been done
      before. But the more quickly it abolished the rule of the
      landowners, the more quickly it turned to its farming on the
      nationalised land, the more resolutely it settled accounts with
      the small minority of kulaks, the sooner it itself became
      transformed into small proprietors. You know that there has been
      a levelling-off in the Russian countryside in this period. The
      number of peasants with large areas under crop and without any
      at all has decreased, while the number of medium farms has
      increased. The countryside has become more potty bourgeois. This
      is an independent class, which the landowners and capitalists
      are expelled and eliminated, is the only class capable of
      opposing the proletariat. That is why it is absurd to write on
      placards that the reign of the workers and peasants will last
      for ever.

You know the political mood oi this force. It is a vacillating
      force. We saw this to be true during our revolution all over the
      country. There were some local features in Russia proper,
      Siberia and the Ukraine, but the result was the same everywhere:
      it is a vacillating force. For a long time it was in the leading
      strings of the SocialistRevolutionaries and Mensheviks, with the
      aid of Kerensky, in the Kolchak period, under the Constituent
      Assembly in Samara, when the Menshevik Maisky was a Minister of
      Kolchak or of one of his predecessors, etc. This force wavered
      between the leadership of the proletariat and that of the
      bourgeoisie. Why didn’t it lead itself? After all, it is
      the overwhelming majority. The fact is that the economic
      conditions of these masses are such that they are unable to
      organise and unite by their own efforts. This is clear to anyone
      who is not misled by empty talk about “universal
      suffrage”, a constituent assembly and such like
      “democracy” which has served to dupe the people in
      all countries for hundreds of years and which the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in our own country
      played up for hundreds of weeks but fell through “on this
      very spot every blessed time”.(Applause.)We
      know from our own experience—and revolutions all over the
      world confirm it if we take the modern epoch of, say, a hundred
      and fifty years—that the result has always been the same
      everywhere: the petty bourgeoisie in general, and the peasants
      in particular, have failed in all their attempts to realise
      their strength, and to direct economics and politics their own
      way. They have had to follow the leadership either of the
      proletariat, or the capitalists—there is no middle way
      open to them. Anyone who thinks of a middle way is an empty
      dreamer. There is much politics, economics, and history to prove
      it. The teachings of Marx show that once the small proprietors
      become owners of the means of production and land, exchange
      between them necessarily gives rise to capital, and
      simultaneously to the antagonisms between capital and
      labour. The struggle between capital and the proletariat is
      inevitable; it is a law manifesting itself all over the
      world. This must he accepted by anyone who refuses to fool
      himself.

These fundamental economic facts explain why this force cannot
      manifest itself through its own efforts, and why it has always
      failed in all its attempts to do so in the history of all
      revolutions. Whenever the proletariat was unable to lead the
      revolution, this force always followed the leadership of the
      bourgeoisie. That was the case in all revolutions. The Russians,
      of course, are of the same clay, and if they choose to pretend
      they are not, they will only look ridiculous. History metes out
      the same treatment to all. We, in particular, saw the truth of
      this under the rule of Kerensky. At that time, the government
      had the support of very many more political leaders than the
      Bolsheviks have, They were clever, educated men, with vast
      experience in politics and state administration. If we were to
      count all the officials who sabotaged us, but who did not make
      it their business to sabotage the Kerensky government, which
      relied on the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, we would
      find that they made up an overwhelming majority. Still that
      government collapsed. That shows that there were factors which
      offset the enormous preponderance of intellectual and educated
      forces accustomed to administering the state, an art they had
      acquired decades before they actually took over. Events ran the
      same course, with some modifications, in the Ukraine, the Don
      and the Kuban regions, and the result was exactly the same. That
      could not have been a coincidence. Such is the economic and
      political law governing the second force: hence, either the
      leadership of the proletariat—a hard road, but one which
      can help it to escape the rule of the landowners and
      capitalists—or the leadership of the capitalists, as it
      does in the advanced democratic republics, and even in America,
      where the free distribution of land (every settler was allotted
      sixty dessiatines[about 160
      acres—Translator]free of chargebetter
      conditions can hardly be imagined!) has not yet entirely
      stopped, and where this has led to the complete domination of
      capital.

That is the second force.

Over here it is wavering, and is particularly weary. It has had
      to bear the burdens of the revolution, and in the past few years
      fresh burdens have been thrust upon it: a year of crop failure,
      surplus-grain appropriations, with cattle dying off because of
      the fodder shortage, etc. In the circumstances, it is not
      surprising that this second force the masses of the
      peasantry—should give way to despair. They could not think
      of improving their condition although three and a half years
      have passed since the landowners were driven out, yet the
      improvement is becoming an urgent necessity. The dispersing army
      fails to find proper employment for its labour-power, and so
      this petty-bourgeois force is being transformed into an anarchic
      element, whose restiveness is an expression of its demands.

You are all familiar with the third force: the landowners and
      capitalists. It is no longer conspicuous in this country. But
      one crucial event, one critical lesson of the past few
      weeks—the Kronstadt events—was like a flash of
      lightning which threw more of a glare upon reality than anything
      else.

There is now no country in Europe without some whiteguard
      elements. Russian émigrds in Europe have been estimated to total
      about seven hundred thousand. These are fugitive capitalists and
      the mass of office workers who could not adapt themselves to
      Soviet rule. We see nothing of this third force, it has
      emigrated, but it lives and operates in alliance with the
      capitalists of the world, who are assisting it as they assisted
      Kolchak, Yudenich and Wrangel, with money and in other ways,
      because they have their international bonds. We all remember
      these people. You must have noticed the abundance of extracts
      from the whiteguard press in our newspapers over the last few
      days, explaining the events in Kronstadt. In the last few days,
      they have been described by Burtsev, who puts out a newspaper in
      Paris, and have been appraised by Milyukov—you must have
      all read this. Why have our newspapers devoted so much attention
      to it? Was it right to do so? It was, because we must have a
      clear view of our enemy. Abroad, they are not so conspicuous,
      but you will find that they have not moved very far away, just a
      few thousand versts at most; and having moved that far, have
      taken cover. They are alive and kicking, and lying in wait. That
      is why we must keep a close watch on them, especially because
      they are more than just refugees. Indeed, they are the agents of
      world capital, who work with it hand in glove.

You must have noticed that these extracts from the whiteguard
      newspapers published abroad appeared side by side with extracts
      from British and French newspapers. They are one chorus, one
      orchestra. It is true that such orchestras are not conducted by
      a man with a score. International capital uses less conspicuous
      means than a conductor’s baton, but that it is one
      orchestra should be clear from any one of these extracts. They
      have admitted that if the slogan becomes “Soviet power
      without the Bolsheviks” they will all accept it. Milyukov
      explains this with particular clarity. He has made a close study
      of history, and has had a refresher course in Russian history at
      first hand. He has supplemented his twenty years of book
      learning with twenty months of personal experience. He says he
      is prepared to accept the “Soviet power without the
      Bolsheviks” slogan. He cannot see from over there in Paris
      whether this is to be a slight shift to the right or to the
      left, towards the anarchists. From over there, he cannot see
      what is going on in Kronstadt, but asks the monarchists not to
      rush and spoil things by shouting about it. He declares that
      even if the shift is to be to the left, he is prepared to back
      the Soviet power against the Bolsheviks.

This is what Milyukov says, and it is absolutely right. When he
      says that the Kronstadt events reveal an urge to set up a Soviet
      regime without the Bolsheviks, he shows that he has learned
      something from Russian history and from the landowners and
      capitalists. It is a demand for a slight shift to the right,
      with a little bit of unrestricted trade, and a little bit of a
      constituent assembly—listen to any Menshevik, and you will
      hear it all, perhaps even without leaving this hail. If the
      slogan of the Kronstadt events is a slight deviation to the
      left—Soviet power with the anarchists, begotten by
      distress, war, the demobilisation of the army—why is
      Milyukov in favour of it? Because he knows that a deviation
      leads either to the proletarian dictatorship or to the
      capitalists.

Political power cannot exist in any other way. Although we are
      not waging our last battle but one of the last and decisive
      battles, the only correct answer to the question “Against
      whom shall we wage one of the decisive battles today?” is:
      “Against petty-bourgeois anarchy at home.”(Applause.)As for the landowners and capitalists, we
      beat them in the first campaign, but only in the first one: the
      second is to be waged on an international scale. Modern
      capitalism cannot fight against us, even if it were a hundred
      times stronger, because over there, in the advanced countries,
      the workers disrupted its war yesterday and will disrupt it even
      more effectively tcday, because over there the consequences of
      the war are beginning to toll more and more. We have defeated
      the petty-bourgeois element at home, but it will make itself
      felt again. And that is taken into account by the landowners and
      the capitalists, particularly the clever ones, like Milyukov,
      who has told the monarchists: “Sit still, keep quiet,
      otherwise you will only strengthen the Soviet power.” This
      has been proved by the general course of the revolutions in
      which the toilers, with temporary peasant support, set up
      short-lived dictatorships but had no consolidated power, so that
      after a brief period everything tended to slip back. This
      happened because the peasants, the toilers, the small
      proprietors, can have no policy of their own and must retreat
      alter a period of vacillation. That was the case in the Great
      French Revolution, and, on a smaller scale, in all
      revolutions. And, of course, everyone has learned this
      lesson. Cur whiteguards crossed the frontier, rode off a
      distance of three days’ journey, and, backed and supported
      by West-European capital, are lying in wait and watching. Such
      is the situation. It makes clear the tasks and duties of the
      proletariat.

Weariness and exhaustion produce a certain mood, and sometimes
      lead to desperation. As usual, this tends to breed anarchism
      among the revolutionary elements. That was the case in all
      capitalist countries, and that is what is taking place in our
      own country. The petty-bourgeois element is in the grip of a
      crisis because it has had it hard over the past few years; not
      as hard as the proletariat had it in 1919, but hard,
      nevertheless. The peasantry had to save the state by accepting
      the surplus-grain appropriations without remuneration, but it
      can no longer stand the strain. That is why there is confusion
      and vacillation in its midst, and this is being taken into
      account by the capitalist enemy, who says: “All it needs
      is a little push, and it will start snowballing.” That is
      the meaning of the Kronstadt events in the light of the
      alignment of class, forces in the whole of Russia and on the
      international scale. That is the meaning of one of our last and
      crucial battles, for we have not beaten this
      petty-bourgeois—anarchist element, and the immediate fate
      of the revolution now depends on whether or not we succeed in
      doing so. If we do not, we shall slide down as the French
      Revolution did. This is inevitable, and we must not let
      ourselves be misled by phrases and excuses. We must do all we
      can to alleviate the position of these masses and safeguard the
      proletarian leadership. If we do this, the growing movement of
      the communist revolution in Europe will be further
      reinforced. What has not. yet taken place there today, may well
      take place tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but in world
      history such periods, as between today and tomorrow, mean no
      less than a few years.

That is my answer to the question as to what we are now fighting
      for, in one of our last and crucial battles. That is my reading
      of recent events and the significance of the class struggle in
      Russia. It is now clear why it has become so acute and why we
      find it so hard to see that the chief enemy is not Yudenich,
      Kolchak or Denikin, but our own conditions.

I can now go on to the concluding part of my speech (which is
      already too long), namely, the state of railway and water
      transport, and the tasks of the Railway and Water Transport
      Workers’ Congress. 1 think that what I have had to
      describe here is very intimately bound up with these
      tasks. There is hardly another section of the proletariat which
      comes so closely into contact with industry and agriculture in
      its everyday economic activity as the railway and water
      transport workers. You must supply the cities with food, and
      revive the rural areas by carrying the manufactured goods to
      them. That is clear to everyone, but it is much clearer to
      railway and water transport workers, because that is their
      everyday work. And from this, I think, follow the exceptionally
      important tasks and the responsibility now falling to the
      railway and water transport workers.

You all know that your Congress has been meeting just after some
      friction between the upper and the lower echelons of the
      union. When this question was brought up at the last Party
      Congress, decisions were adopted to reconcile them by
      subordinating the upper echelons to the lower, by rectifying the
      upper echelons’ mistakes, which I think were of a minor
      nature but needed rectifying. You know that the Party Congress
      rectified these mistakes, that the Congress closed on a note of
      greater solidarity and unity in the ranks of the Communist Party
      than before. That is the legitimate, necessary and only correct
      reply that the vanguard, i.e., the leading section of the
      proletariat, can give to the movement of the
      petty-bourgeois-anarchist element. If we class-conscious workers
      realise the danger of this movement, if we rally our forces,
      work much more harmoniously and show a great deal more of
      solidarity, we shall multiply our forces. After our victory over
      the military attack, we shall conquer the vacillations and
      wavering of this element that is disturbing the whole of our
      everyday life and for that reason is, I repeat, dangerous. The
      decisions of the Party Congress, which rectified what was called
      to its attention, signify a great step forward in increasing the
      solidarity and unity of the proletarian army. Your Congress must
      do the same thing and implement the decisions of the Party
      Congress.

I repeat: the fate of the revolution depends more immediately
      upon the work of this section of the proletariat than upon any
      other. We must restore the exchange between agriculture and
      industry, and we need a material basis to do so. What is it? It
      is railway and water transport. That is why it is your duty to
      dedicate yourselves to your work and this applies not only to
      those of you who are members of the Communist Party, and are
      therefore conscious vehicles of the proletarian dictatorship,
      but also to those of you who do not belong to the Party, but
      represent a transport workers trade union with a million, or a
      million and a half, members. All of you, learning the lessons of
      our revolution and of all preceding revolutions, must understand
      the full gravity of the present situation. If you do not allow
      yourselves to be blinded by all sorts of slogans such as
      “Freedom”, “Constituent Assembly”,
      “Free Soviets”—it is so easy to switch labels
      that even Milyukov has turned up as a supporter of the Soviets
      of a Kronstadt republic—if you do not close your eyes to
      the alignment of class forces, you will acquire a sound and firm
      basis for all your political conclusions. You will then see that
      we are passing through a period of crisis in which it depends on
      us whether the proletarian revolution continues to march to
      victory as surely as before, or whether the vacillations and
      waverings lead to the victory of the whiteguards, which will not
      alleviate the situation, but will set Russia hack from the
      revolution for many decades. The only conclusion that you,
      representatives of railway and water transport workers, can and
      should draw is—let’s have much more proletarian
      solidarity and discipline. Comrades, we must achieve this at all
      costs, and win. (Stormy applause.)

[1]The Congress was
      held, under a decision of the Central Committee, in Moscow from
      March 22 to 31, 1921. Most of its 1,079 delegates were
      Communists. The items on the agenda were: report of Tsektran;
      report of the People’s Commissar for Communications;
      report of the Central Board of the River Transport Workers
      section; wage rates; transport workers’ food supplies, and
      international confederation of transport workers.

Lenin was elected Honorary Chairman of the Congress. On the eve
      of the Congress, on March 25, 1921, Lenin had a talk with
      V. V. Fomin, Deputy Commissar for Communications, about the work
      of the Congress and the composition of the next
      Tsektran. Lenin’s speech at the March 27 afternoon sitting
      was published as a pamphlet in 1921.